Earlier today, first at Saddleback College and then at IVC, the SOCCCD BOT held a "Trustee Listening Session." 

I was unable to attend any of these sessions, but I have heard reports of IVC's meeting. Evidently, many faculty and classified spoke and had much criticism of college administration/managers to offer.

More tomorrow.

More on Mikel...

Over at the OC Weekly, Matt Coker has the latest on the Mikel Anthony Williams case:

excerpt:

The second of two men charged in the murder of a popular Irvine Valley College student pleaded guilty Friday not to murder but, under a deal with a court, voluntary manslaughter. Heriberto Erick Vergara Calvillo, 27, is expected to be sentenced to 22 years in state prison on June 27....

To read the rest, click here. 

And here's the OC Register's coverage:  Man pleads guilty to manslaughter

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April meeting of the SOCCCD BOT

     Sorry, there'll be no coverage of the board meeting tonight. I'm at home sick with a cold.
     Check out Tere's Board Meeting Highlights
     Streaming video of the April meeting can be found here

Shit happens (@ SOCCCD)

Some union shit that happened:

• The infamous "SAME-SEX" flier & how we got to this sorry state
• Adventures in Advertising: The real purpose behind gay-baiting at Saddleback College
• Sherry Miller-White: the end justifies the means, evidently
• "Time for Pie" by Chunk Wheeler
• Board's Unlikely Secret Allies
• Contract ratification: "What a pr*ck," I thought
• 1998: Ken Woodward defends Frogue and our corrupt union on KPFK

     The low turnout for the recently concluded faculty union election suggests that faculty are once again dropping the ball, failing to monitor this powerful voice, the Faculty Association. Colleagues, it is important to remember just how bad things can get when the wrong people control that  organization. That happened back in the 90s, when Sharon Macmillan—reportedly now mentoring some active members of the FA—and her friends (Raghu Mathur, et al.) placed Teddi Lorch, John Williams, Dorothy Fortune, Steve Frogue—and, by 2000, Don Wagner and Tom Fuentes—on the board. We have yet to fully recover, as you know. (Don’t forget that one Mathur protégé, the incompetent and unpopular Glenn Roquemore, remains President of IVC after a dozen years. The board seems determined to keep him there, despite his manifest failings.)
     Here are two brief videos that provide some sense of how dark our days can become when we fail to keep vigil.

This is how the MacMillan-Woodward-Mathur-Runyan FA got their slate of trustee candidates elected in 1996: such tactics as the infamous homophobic flier, sent to Republican households

An entry from THE DISSENTER’S DICTIONARY (c. 1999)

FACULTY ASSOCIATION (aka the "union")

     The SOCCCD faculty union, the legal representative of faculty concerning contractual matters; a chapter of the California Teachers Association (and of its division, the Community College Association [CCA]).

     By the mid-90s, the FA was controlled by a small group of faculty—the OLD GUARD—that utterly disregarded rules, laws, common practice, and democratic principles. Starting in about '96, for over a year, union members sought unsuccessfully to secure (among other things) a copy of the chapter's bylaws—an effort that increased in intensity during and after the infamous ’96 trustees race, in which many tens of thousands of union dollars were used to finance the notorious homophobic "SAME-SEX" flier. Faced with this pressure, president Sherry Miller-White (and vice president Sharon MacMillan) asserted that the bylaws would become available once a mysterious "clean up" process was completed. (We were told that "typos" needed to be corrected.) Eventually, owing to pressure brought by the CTA, Miller-White produced a copy of "the bylaws," but it was soon determined to be a version that had been registered with CTA many years before and, according to CTA guidelines, was no longer valid, since it had not subsequently been submitted for review and registration. In about December of '96, reform members discovered that, not only had the chapter's leadership failed to keep valid bylaws on file with CTA but they had even failed properly to register the chapter with CTA. When reformers then applied for a CTA charter, CTA officials, fearing litigation, insisted that the old chapter, despite its failure to be chartered, was indeed a chapter of CTA. ("If it quacks like a duck, it's a duck.")
     Owing to the chapter's egregious election conduct and its undemocratic ways, a lengthy letter of complaint, signed by 109 tenured faculty, was sent to the CCA president in December of '96. Ultimately, this yielded the formation of a CTA "leadership team," which visited the district in April (?) of '97 and later issued a report, according to which the chapter had indeed failed to keep minutes or proper PAC records and had engaged in unacceptable campaign tactics. (See LEADERSHIP TEAM REPORT)

     During this period, Miller-White and her Old Guard cronies continued to run the chapter as though it were their private club. Invariably, Representative Council meetings would be held without a quorum (the issue was never raised). When reformers complained about this, Miller-White invariably became hostile and even beligerent. During one meeting in '97, Rep Council members agreed, contra Miller-White, that an effort should be made to determine the existence of a quorum, but it soon became clear that the members present could not agree what constituted a quorum. Indeed, it became clear that there was disagreement regarding who was and who was not a member of the Rep Council!
     During the spring of '98, the Old Guard finally permitted an internal election of officers and Rep Council members, but when it yielded many Reform-candidate victories, Miller-White and her group simply declared the entire election null and void, citing their own error with regard to egligibility requirements for one office. In subsequent months, the Old Guard spent tens of thousands of dollars promoting the candidacies of two avowedly anti-teachers union candidates—Padberg and Wagner, friends of the Board Majority. When union members asked whether this was true, Miller-White and her cronies simply refused to answer. Thanks to fliers and ads that implied, falsely, that Padberg and Wagner could help stop the El Toro airport, the two were elected in November of '98, and the Board Majority expanded to 5 members.
     In the spring of '99, owing to the involvement of CTA, new internal elections were held, and the reformers won, though MacMillan (formerly president-elect) now presided, despite being on sabbatical. (Naturally, the Old Guard contested the election.) The PAC committee, however, comprised former chapter presidents, and thus was dominated by the Old Guard. Thus, the reformers initiated the arduous task of gaining membership control of the PAC.
     Toward the end of her tenure as president, Miller-White, without proper authorization from the Rep Council, made a "verbal" request to the Chancellor to cut withholdings from members' paychecks, and he readily complied. This meant that no monies would be collected for the union PAC—money that could eventually be used to defeat Fortune, Williams, and Frogue in 2000. When the new Rep Council decided to restore the withholdings, Sampson was notified, but refused to restore them. (At one point, he cited the fact that the request had merely been "verbal.") Eventually, CTA lawyers demanded the change, but Sampson still refused to make it. This has resulted in PERB complaint which may soon be ruled upon....

OTHER VIDEOS:

• Targeting "shared governance," 2000
• Weighing all of the allegations! Mathurians endeavor speech
• Trustee Fuentes Just Says No (but faculty keep sayin' YES)
• Anti-Mathur: the "Get the Goo Out" rally, 2005
• Don Wagner versus the American Library Association

Been watchin' Rectify. Heard this song. Liked it.

Gustavo Arellano chosen as Commencement Speaker at Fullerton College

This just in: Fullerton College has chosen one of the O.C.'s favorite native sons, Gustavo Arellano, as its commencement speaker. This year is Fullerton College's centennial year.

As Gustavo says, "It really is an honor, especially given I'm a product of the community college system."

We couldn't agree more. Devoted readers of Dissent will remember that Rebel Girl has nominated Gustavo as a commencement speaker for years (years!) now.

She has all but given up especially since the last time it was made clear to her in no uncertain terms just how inappropriate a nominee such as Gustavo was. She can take a hint. (For the record, the committee wasn't too impressed with local hijab-wearing feminist journalists or Middle Eastern scholars from neighboring UCs either.) Make of that what you will. All Rebel Girl can tell you is that is was one of the most toxic meetings she has ever attended and that is saying a great deal.



Read all about Fullerton's choice here.

Read about IVC's commencement speaker process here. Perhaps this is the year when Tom Hanks will visit the little college in the orange groves. We'll see.

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Rank and Fail

     RANK AND FAIL. The faculty union (Faculty Association) is conducting an election, but the election won’t be valid unless at least half of the membership participates. The polls have been open for many days, but they close in two, and, as of this morning, participation was 40 or 50 short of the all-important 50% number.
     Wow.
     Union leaders were plenty worried, and so the word got out: it’s time to start twisting arms. The twisting commenced, and, as of mid-afternoon, it appeared that the effort was successful or nearly so. Whew!
     It’s a pretty miserable situation when membership won’t even show up for elections (voting is online and takes about 10 seconds, if one dithers), but, as we know, some unionists are more miserable than others. By this morning, IVC’s School of Humanities and Languages had achieved 100% participation in the election. But certain other schools that shall remain nameless (Fart Sine) are at a participation rate in the 20s.
     Failure to achieve a valid election would seriously embarrass the union, given that faculty and the district have entered contract negotiations, a period in which leaders routinely attend board meetings to speak on behalf of faculty, that supposed passionate and hard-working crew. When faculty don’t even show up for their elections, it kinda takes the starch out of all of it.

School of a Snifter

     SCHOOL F'ARTS. Speaking of certain, ahem, pesky schools and divisions (Fat Rinse), it turns out that IVC’s School of Fine Arts (Fat Risen) is attempting to change its name. Word of this development inspired lots of loose talk down at the A200 building (at IVC) this morning. One wag noted that “Fine Arts” has such anagrams as:

A Snifter
After Sin
Sane Rift
Fart Sine
Aft Rinse
Fat Risen
Fat Rinse
Fat Resin
Ant Fires

Shatter, The Rats
A Shit Loon Scoffer

     Fine Arts seeks to change its name to “The Arts.” Some mocked that idea. One wag suggested that Fine Arts simply change its name to the “School f’arts.” Very continental, that.
     For what it’s worth, here are some anagrams for "The Arts”:

Threats
Hatters
Shatter (past tense, I suppose, of shitter, as in "The faculty descended into the latrine, shattering all hope")
The Rats

     My fave: Shatter.
     Perfect.

*P.S. Anagrams of “School of Fine Arts”:

A Shit Loon Scoffer
Facile Hoof Snorts
Foolish Snot Farce
Folio Of Snatchers
Hoofs Of Clarinets
Fornicate Of Slosh

Young Theodore's right eye

All freakin' ears

Chancellor's ears not to scale

At about 3:00 this afternoon, SOCCCD Chancellor Gary Poertner sent us this message:

I think the Chancellor and trustees have in mind bein' all freakin' ears for this "listening session."

The flier says that "administrators and managers are not scheduled to attend." I think that means they're bein' told to stay away.

Let's hope that circumstance inspires some folks to start tellin' it like it is.

 

Some of our readers have commented:

Anonymous 8:35 AM, April 22, 2014

     I hope someone, more than one someone, will speak to the miscarriage of process (once again) in the IVC Foundation Scholarship program. It is an indefensible mess. Attempts to reform have failed and once again the excuse is there is no time to address problems because the end of the year is upon us. We've been here before people. It's disgraceful. I assure you this kind of thing doesn't happen at other institutions. Why they don't review the plans of other colleges and adjust ours is beyond me. They have some kind of weird allegiance to an entirely broke system.

Anonymous 8:47 AM, April 22, 2014

     No one want to point out that it is broken or just how broken it is because then someone (or more) will have be take responsibility - or perhaps liability.
     This happens every year at this time but then it's full steam ahead to the end with no stopping it. A runaway train. Unfortunately, it's a runaway train loaded with other people's money and good intentions and driven by people who aren't capable.

Anonymous 10:14 AM, April 22, 2014

     Come on. No one tells it like it is with everyone taking down names. It's another photo op, an empty public gesture to satisfy the Accreds: "Look! We came! We listened! Ta da!"

An economic blockbuster? A non-believer in the religion of wealth

Taking On Adam Smith (and Karl Marx) (New York Times)

     …In his new book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” (Harvard University Press), Mr. [Thomas] Piketty, 42, has written a blockbuster, at least in the world of economics. His book punctures earlier assumptions about the benevolence of advanced capitalism and forecasts sharply increasing inequality of wealth in industrialized countries, with deep and deleterious impact on democratic values of justice and fairness.
. . .
     …“Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” with its title echoing Marx’s “Das Kapital,” is meant to be a return to the kind of economic history, of political economy, written by predecessors like Marx and Adam Smith. It is nothing less than a broad effort to understand Western societies and the economic rules that underpin them. And in the process, by debunking the idea that “wealth raises all boats,” Mr. Piketty has thrown down a challenge to democratic governments to deal with an increasing gap between the rich and the poor — the very theme of inequality that recently moved both Pope Francis and President Obama to warn of its consequences.
. . .
     His findings, aided by the power of modern computers, are based on centuries of statistics on wealth accumulation and economic growth in advanced industrial countries. They are also rather simply stated: The rate of growth of income from capital is several times larger than the rate of economic growth, meaning a comparatively shrinking share going to income earned from wages, which rarely increase faster than overall economic activity. Inequality surges when population and the economy grow slowly.
. . .
     “It’s very difficult to make a democratic system work when you have such extreme inequality” in income, he said, “and such extreme inequality in terms of political influence and the production of knowledge and information. One of the big lessons of the 20th century is that we don’t need 19th-century inequality to grow.” But that’s just where the capitalist world is heading again, he concludes….

See also FORCES OF DIVERGENCE (New Yorker, 3/31/14)

A Russian and his eggs

In the district, FIVE YEARS AGO:

The IVC clock tower (1979-2006)

Original post: The Spirit of the Clock Tower
TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2009

     Irvine Valley College once had a clock tower. It was a good clock tower, as clock towers go. But some of its timber was rotten.
     So they tore it down.

     We managed to rescue the clock’s hands. That’s all that’s left. Plus our memories.
     The clock tower is gone. But the spirit of the clock tower survives.
     Here are some pictures that the Reb and I took today around campus and inside the new BSTIC building.

The A-quad: somebody told us that they put this slab of concrete "right on top of the bricks."

"So the bricks are OK," he said.

"Oh."

SEE

• The replacement clock tower adventure
• How to replace a landmark
• His vision

(Just a little humor mostly.)

LATE NEWS:

• JOHN YOO STARS IN A MOST CIVILIZED DEBATE ON TORTURE: The big debate today at Chapman University. (Matt Coker gives us the blow-by-blow in OC Weekly.)
• Bush lawyer defends waterboarding in local debate: John Yoo, whose memos justified controversial interrogation tactics, defends the practices during a Chapman University debate. (Martin Wisckol in the Reg.)

Outdoor sculpture invitational

ORIGINAL POST:
Breaking news! 
MONDAY, APRIL 20, 2009

     I was Googling today and came across a “Social Media Release” dated April 20 about an event that occurred a full week ago. (See.) Here it is:

Irvine Valley College Foundation Awards Dinner - Raises More Than $43,000

     The 21th annual Irvine Valley College Foundation Awards Dinner sponsored by Grainger raised more than $43,000. The gala was held on April 13, 2009 at the Irvine Marriott. [Note: Grainger is a supplier of facilities maintenance products.]
     Patrick Healy, NBC Channel 4 News reporter, was the keynote speaker, and Maria Hall-Brown, producer of KOCE-TV’s “Real Orange,” served as the master of ceremonies. [Hall-Brown has done some decent journalism in recent years. In the 80s and 90s, she was an actress, appearing in David Carradine’s Open Fire (1988), among other movies.]
     The evening wouldn't have been complete without an auction of city officials for charity. [I’ll spare you the corny details.]
     Four individuals were recognized for their outstanding contributions to the college with presentation of the IVC Medal, the Foundation’s highest honor. Medal winners were:



• Howard J. Klein of Klein, O’Neill & Singh…
• Fawn Tanriverdi, a counselor at the college, ….
• Raymond A. Lee and Jeffrey C. Joy of Greenberg Traurig LLP….

     Since 1985, IVC has been serving students…. [etc.]

     This “media release” appears on the pitchengine site.
     I’m told that a real effort was made to make this particular Foundation dinner a class act—to raise it to a "new level," as one person put it. Those who attended tell me that Hall-Brown did a fine job as MC and the person who ran the auction was also good. Almost everything was first-rate.
     I’m also told that, unfortunately, KNBC reporter Patrick Healy, the keynote speaker, bombed bigtime. All seem to agree that the fellow was dreadfully longwinded and dull.
     How is that even possible? I mean, isn’t he out there every night to cover such events as treed cats, traffic accidents, decapitated horses, and, in general, the day of the locust—while looking fairly natty? C’mon!
     Whoever booked Healy obviously didn't ask the right questions—such as, Is he a dull speaker?
     And how come Mr. Tom Fuentes wasn’t the MC? Isn’t he always the MC? You've gotta admit: Tom always brings something beyond his florid, over-the-top "master of ceremonies" performance. With Tom, especially if he's had a few belts, there's always the possibility that—oh, I don't know—he might suddenly break down and finally explain what his goddam problem is. The tension and excitement can be incredible!
     Well, no. No doubt the switch to Hall-Brown was an unexpected ray of sunshine, a delightful pocket full of posies. Plus Fuentes' presence just reminds everyone that, since 2000, the Foundation seems to have drifted increasingly toward the ever-narrowing and staunch world of Tom Fuentes Republicans. That's some serious staunchitude, man. And some serious narrowification.
     Next year, I plan to attend and to provide a detailed report, cuz enquiring minds wanna know about snazzy events at IVC where people dress up and somebody might trip and knock over Raghu or say something completely ridiculous that nevertheless reveals the horror, the heart of darkness, of that man's soul.

The College Faculty Crisis (NYT editorial, 4/13/14)

     The public colleges and universities that educate more than 70 percent of this country’s students were burdened by rising costs and dwindling state revenues long before the recession. They reacted by raising tuition, slashing course offerings and, sometimes, by cutting enrollment.
     They also cut labor costs by replacing full-time professors who retired with part-time instructors, who typically have no health or pension benefits and are often abysmally paid, earning in the vicinity of $3,000 per course.
     The part-timers are often considered “invisible faculty,” because they rarely participate in academic life and typically bolt from campus the moment class ends. That researchers still know little about them — or how well they do their jobs — is especially startling given that a little more than half of all college faculty members are now part-timers, and they far outnumber full-time faculty members on most community college campuses.
     The portrait of these instructors that emerges from a new study by the Center for Community College Student Engagement, a research center at the University of Texas at Austin, is alarming. The report, based on survey responses from more than 71,000 teachers, found that part-timers face many challenges. Because they are treated almost like transient workers, they are given little reason to make an investment in the institution.
     They often learn which courses they are teaching just weeks or even days before the start of the semester, so there is almost no time to prepare. They often lack office space or administrative or technical support and are rarely given any guidance on how to do their jobs effectively. According to the report, they are implicitly told: “Just show up every Thursday at 5 o’clock and deliver a lecture to your class. Give a midterm and a final exam, and then turn in a grade, and the college will pay you a notably small amount of money.”
     The colleges expect little of these teachers. Not surprisingly, they often act accordingly. They spend significantly less time than full-time teachers preparing for class, advising students or giving written or oral feedback. And they are far less likely to participate in instructional activities — like tutoring, academic goal setting or developing community-based projects — that can benefit students.
     This situation is terrible, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds whom community colleges typically attract. On those campuses, nearly two-thirds of the students arrive needing remedial instruction in math, English or both, and often lack the basic competencies they need to move beyond remediation to a degree.
     The community colleges have to do a better job of screening the part-time instructors they hire, and developing their skills, which means providing mentors and career paths that give them the opportunity to engage with campus life.
     All of this will require more money for higher salaries and professional development. College degrees worth having don’t come cheap. Public officials who determine community college budgets should know full well that colleges, like other institutions, only get what they pay for.

"What are you gonna do? Put us in cages and let them throw peanuts at us?"

 

from yesterday's New York Times:

Frank Bruni: The Water Cooler Runs Dry

If you’re closing in on 50 but want to feel much, much older, teach a college course. I’m doing that now, at 49, and hardly a class goes by when I don’t make an allusion that prompts my students to stare at me as if I just dropped in from the Paleozoic era.

Last week I mentioned the movie “They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?” Only one of the 16 students had heard of it. I summarized its significance, riffling through the Depression, with which they were familiar, and Jane Fonda’s career, with which they weren’t. “Barbarella” went sailing over their heads. I didn’t dare test my luck with talk of leg warmers and Ted Turner.

I once brought up Vanessa Redgrave. Blank stares. Greta Garbo. Ditto. We were a few minutes into a discussion of an essay that repeatedly invoked Proust’s madeleine when I realized that almost none of the students understood what the madeleine signified or, for that matter, who this Proust fellow was.

And these are young women and men bright and diligent enough to have gained admission to Princeton University, which is where our disconnect is playing out...

To read the rest, click here.

Meanwhile on a freeway overpass in Irvine...

Matt Coker of the OC Weekly has the story here:

Impeach Obama Group Forms to Protest President's UC Irvine Commencement Gig

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Academic freedom forum, November, 2003

     I came across this cover I made for a DVD (that I edited) of a forum on "Academic Freedom," presented by the IVC Academic Senate back in 2003. The forum was a huge success.
     Ah, the good old days!

Anaheim police dog Bruno recovering after emergency surgery (OC Reg)